1) Marketing in global environment, prospectus and

challenges?

Sol) Global marketing Environment is a complex term to explain because it is covering all
the issues of world that are continuously changing. To explain the true present picture of the
Environment it's necessary to go through the most up-to-date literature and study the current
changes. This chapter is giving the idea about the today's marketing and changes &
challenges of the sub environmental forces.

Today's Marketing

The changing behavior of customers and proliferation of new marketing channels setups the
new issues in the business world. In international market competition it's becoming harder
and harder to maintain the life time relation with customers. Selling quality product and
service in affordable price is not enough to gain the customer loyalty there are also many
other dimensions of care. These all changes make profit secondary and modify organizations
to customer-focused organizations and born the new theories and approaches.

Today's marketing has come out with the circle of 4P's (Product, Price, Place and Promotion)
and in the broader sense it is taking as an organizational function. The modified form of
marketing is to provide greater value to customer and develop and maintain a healthy
relationship.

According to the American Marketing Association today's Marketing is:

"Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating

and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in way that
benefit the organization and its stakeholders."(Keefe, 2004)

The Intermediate and Macro Environment

The global marketing environment comprises the intermediate and the macro environment.
The intermediate environment contains those factors which are semi-controllable through
contracts and they will be categorized as suppliers, Distributors, facilitators and shareholders.
For example in software industries the different vendors, application sellers, temporary
specialist staffs and subcontractors etc are part of intermediate environment

Some countries have more relaxed and easy polices for import and export.

Countries history of friendly relation and healthy business deals have also a positive impact
in the future trades. Similarly if countries have better infrastructure for trading polices and
legislations it also goes in the favor of the international traders. It helps to minimize the time
and provide the secure dealings and especially newcomers feel comfortable to trade in such
environment. With all these reasons the fresh literature tells us about the twelve factors
involvement in the international trading.

Changes and Challenges

"Marketing has become a complex art. Technology and trade have increased the potential for
global brands. The fragmentation of audiences and rising costs of television and print
advertising are making other media attractive. And direct marketing and the internet are
rewriting all the marketing rules."

55 years back, the television invention opens the new ways of the mass marketing and with
the visual demonstration many local brand and now take the status of the world class brand.
This technology changes the language of the advertising. In old age mostly people preferred
to buy things from market search and mainly radio transmitted about the market affairs and
new coming products. Then TV gave the new confidence to its viewers and globally
advertised the real market position. The visual demonstration also teach the people and guide
them correctly and it also answered the question that why they need and want this specific
product. Now World Wide Web is taking the position of the TV and Similarly the Digital TV
and the Smart mobile are writing the new rules of the marketing.

Today mobile and pager is the basic need of people and every one is in range just because of
a small piece of technology. Here telecommunication was playing an important role. Now in
the end of 20th century, the emergence of internet and telecommunication introduce m-
commerce. First mobile companies simply provide an updates information like weather
reports, games online information, latest movies and songs information etc just to provide
better services and to satisfy customer. From that time the m-commerce became the part of
our life and no one feel this addition of the new business technique, today banks and other
financial services are also providing mobile commerce services and this tiny device has
become the source of market transactions. This was the small overview of emergence of the
technology.

On the other hand the destructive incidents like 9/11 and 7/7 etc. and other country wars (War
against terrorism) are destroying the developed markets and the investors are feeling fear to
invest money in these risky areas.

The customer buying behavior and its quality perception is also changing and now he is
demanding the rich added value products and services. The multinational companies and
chain store also create a strong competition globally and it's becoming more difficult to retain
a long term relation with existing customer.

However the last decade of the twentieth century bought major changes that redefine the role
and concept of marketing. The rapid change of market made customer more sophisticated and
value added demanding. Products/service development and management has changed
radically, the internet and third party securities made more easy transactions and virtualized
payment and distribution channels introduce new way to approach market

2) Strategic marketing key drivers of marketing

strategies?
Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited
resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive
advantage.

Before you start creating a marketing strategy, you must understand that a strategy is a
continuous process of testing and adjustment and not a single event or a majestic document.
A strategy must be a dynamic and flexible set of long-term ideas that guide your marketing
decisions. It's the game plan that you take into battle that is elastic enough to adapt to the ever
changing market.

However, although these strategic principles are evolving they are built upon several key
fundamentals that fit your business philosophy and match the needs of your market. These
key fundamentals are:

1. Who is your best qualified prospects and clients

2. What unique value you offer to the market

3. The tone and style of your marketing message

4. The desired perception of your product and service offering

5. The reasons why should they trust you and buy from you rather than any other choice in
the marketplace

These five concepts must be at the core of your marketing strategy development. They are the
guiding lights that you should never take you eye off of when developing any of your
marketing tactics.

Too often when a small business purchases advertising from newspaper and yellow page
companies they lose sight of these critical fundamental elements. Typically, the salesperson
will offer free design services with the purchase of the ad space to close the deal. This seems
like a no-brainer but has severe consequences to their marketing strategy.

The designer of these ads has no clue about the marketing strategy of the business. They end
up designing an ad that looks the same as all the other competitors on the page. They know
how to design an ad that fits the space, but they don't have a clue on how to sell and market a
product or service.

When there is no marketing strategy in place the effectiveness of your advertising severely
erodes the return on your marketing investment.

Flip through the yellow pages book in your office to see the worst examples of this practice.
It's pretty scary when you really notice it.

When you have a marketing strategy in place and apply these five key fundamentals to all of
your advertising and promotional tactics you create consistency. Consistency and repetition
are the drivers of marketing success. By establishing your five key fundamentals, you will
always have the basis to create powerful and effective marketing that creates sales.

For winning marketing strategies and tactics which help entrepreneurs play the marketing
game and dominate their competition, visit the Touchdown Marketing System
[http://www.td-marketing-system.com/freetryout] Marketing Coach Ron Abbott provides the
fundamentals businesses need to create a powerful marketing system that produces results.

3) Marketing segmentation, targeting and positioning

for any suitable goods?

Sol Segmentation defined

The essence of the marketing concept is the idea of placing customer needs at the
centre of the organization’s decision-making. The need to adopt this approach stems
from a number of factors, including increased competition, better-informed and-
educated customers and, most importantly, changing patterns of demand. Primarily it
is this change in patterns of demand that has given rise to the need to segment
markets. This stems from the fact that higher standards of living and a trend towards
individualism has meant that consumers are now more able to exercise their choice
in the market place.

Market segmentation can be defined as the process of breaking down the total
market for a product or service into distinct sub-groups or segments where each
segment may conceivably represent a separate target market to be reached with a
distinctive marketing mix.

Effective segmentation is achieved when customers sharing similar patterns of

demand are grouped together and where each group or segment differs in the
pattern of demand from other segments in the market. In most markets, be they
consumer or industrial, some kind of segmentation can be accomplished on this
basis.

Targeted marketing efforts

Most companies realise that they cannot effectively serve all the segments in a
market, and must instead target their marketing efforts. For example, in developing a
new car, the manufacturing firm will have to make a decision on many issues, such
as should it be a two-, four-, or five-seater model, with a 1000, 2000 or 3000cc
engine? Should it have leather, fabric or vinyl seats?

Product positioning

A company has to develop a positioning strategy for each segment it chooses to

serve. This relates to the task of ensuring that a particular company’s products
occupy a planned for place in chosen target markets, pertinent to opposing
competition in the marketplace. The notion of product/brand positioning is applicable
to both industrial and consumer markets, and the key aspects of this approach are
based upon the following suppositions.

1. All products and brands have both objective attributes (e.g. sweet/sour;
dark/light; fast/slow) and subjective attributes (e.g. modern/unfashionable;
happy/sad; youthful/elderly).
2.
3. Potential purchasers might think about one or more of these attributes when
deliberating which product and/or brand to purchase.

4. That potential customers have their own thoughts about how the various
competing products or brands rate for each of these particular attributes. In
other words, the positioning of the brand along the parameters of these
attributes (eg ‘entertaining’ on the one hand to ‘mundane’ at the other
extreme) takes place in the mind of the customer.

Once this is done, it is possible to establish important attributes in choosing between

different brands or products, together with the customer’s perception of the position
of competitors’ products in relation to these characteristics, and then establish the
most advantageous position for the company within this particular segment of the
market.

Summary

We can now appreciate how marketing begins to work. Having defined the purpose
of segmentation we have looked at the obvious and the less obvious bases for
segmentation in both consumer and industrial markets. We have also ascertained
that used well, the techniques and concepts described in this chapter can contribute
significantly to overall company marketing success. Market segmentation, targeting
and positioning decisions are thus more strategic than they are tactical.

Segmentation variables should be examined in detail, especially new segments.

These should then be authenticated in terms of viability and potential profit.

4) Understanding of buying behaviour building and

measuring customer satisfaction?

The process by which individuals search for, select, purchase, use, and
dispose of goods and services, in satisfaction of their needs and wants.
See also consumer decision making.

In this world of extreme competition, companies with a total focus on customer are
going to be the winner. Companies must understand importance of customer
satisfaction and then build process around it. A satisfied customer will be a loyal
customer.

There are large offering of products and services available in the market then why
the customer should choose a given company’s product. According to various
research and studies it has been confirmed that consumer will purchase products,
which given them maximum perceived value. This value comes from calculating the
cost associated with the emotional level decision like the brand image, corporate
brand, sales personnel image and functional image. This value converts to total
customer cost by including purchase cost, time-energy in evaluation of product and
intuitive cost.

Consumer will take decisions after considering the total cost associated with
purchase, perceived and otherwise. If after the purchase product performs as
expected than customer is considered satisfied. A completely satisfied customer
.
Companies are able to achieve this state of total customer satisfaction
by incorporating good business practices. These practices are
constructed around stakeholders, business process, resource and
organization.

Companies through creating and delivering value can develop total

customer satisfaction. Company itself can be considered as a value chain
consisting of primary and secondary activities. Primary activities consist of
inbound materials, operation, delivering finished products, sales/marketing
and servicing clients. Secondary activities consist of functional departments
like technology department, procurement department, human resource and
finance department. This value created is delivered to customer through the
distribution channel under the principle of supply chain management.

Customers in the digital age are much more conscious and aware of their
need and wants, making them a difficult lot to please. Companies run
marketing campaign highlighting points of similarity and difference with
competitor’s products. The art is not at attracting the customer, but it is at
retaining the customer and creating long term relation with them. Companies
usually suffer from churning effect where customers do not make the
repurchase. Companies need to work hard in identifying reasons behind this
churning. Once reasons are identified separate them on the basis of
manageable and non-manageable issues and then work hard at eliminating
manageable issues.

5) Understanding of marketing information system –

roll of marketing research in launching new product
process of marketing research?
A Marketing Information System can be defined as 'a system in which marketing
information is formally gathered, stored, analysed and distributed to managers in accordance
with their informational needs on a regular basis' (Jobber, 2007)
Marketing Information System is a computer based system intended for use by particular
marketing personnel at any functional level for the purpose of solving Marketing Problems. It
helps firm's to solve problems relating to Marketing of Firm's product (Goods & Services).

The system is created through an understanding of the information needs of marketing

management. It is available to supply information when, where and how the manager requires
it. Data is taken from the marketing environment and transferred into the information that
marketing managers can use in their decision-making processes.

Data: Basic form of knowledge. Example. one isolated statistic. Information: A combination
of Data that provide relevant knowledge

New" is one of the strongest words in marketing. "New" invokes the belief that
something is moving forward, that it is different, modern or improved.  People
are attracted to new products like a magnet. Introducing new products on a
constant basis is the best way to get attention and is invaluable publicity for a
business.  "New" positions a company as being dynamic and forward looking. 
Companies such as 3M and Sony have held this slot for periods of time but it
is difficult to stay there.  Innovation is hard work and the road is paved with
failures.

Introduction: The Importance Of "New"

This white paper shows how market research, when used correctly, will minimize the
risk of failure.  It also explains that market research does not always give a clear-cut
answer – considerable insights and experience are required by the market research
analyst to interpret the data and visualize the opportunity.

The word "new" is sometimes over-played in marketing because it is so frequently

used for everything from conceptually new products through to old wine in new
bottles.  The main types of product development are as follows:

1. New concepts – completely new products that have arisen as a result of

innovation and which can sometimes create new markets.
2. Additions to existing product lines – new products that supplement
established product lines.  For example, a supplier of industrial gases may
introduce a new, smaller cylinder to include in an existing product line,
aimed at serving customers who require smaller amounts of gas.
3. Modifications of existing products – existing products that are modified
in order to better meet customer needs, such as improved performance.

90% of new product research is focused on product 'additions' and 'modifications'

rather than on the concepts.  There is nothing wrong with this.  Product
improvements are obvious developments and are much more easily accepted than
conceptually new products.

In fact, the more conceptually new the product, the riskier it can be.  FedEx lost $340
million on its new Zap mail and DuPont lost an estimated $100 million on a new
synthetic leather product called Corfam.  With this in mind, many companies turn to
disciplined market research as a form of insurance, i.e. as a means of reducing
business risk.  The next section looks at how market research is used in product
development – not only as insurance, but also as a tool to establish needs and to
obtain intelligence on market potential.

Using Market Research In Product Development

Market research can be used at all stages in the product life cycle, as illustrated in
Figure 1 and explained in the following sections on applications for market research.

Figure 1 - Applications For Market Research

Determining The Type Of Market Research Required

New product research almost certainly will require a mixture of qualitative and
quantitative research.

Qualitative research is necessary to obtain a deep understanding of issues such as

requirements and unmet needs.  It allows more freedom in exploration depending on
respondents' areas of interest. The principal research tools of qualitative research
are focus groups or depth interviews, which allow questioning and probing far below
the skin of the subject.
Once the needs have been understood and it is clear that there is a market for a new
product, some means is required of measuring the size of demand, usage habits,
attitudes to products and the likelihood of up-take of the new product.  Quantitative
research now takes over and a relatively large number of structured interviews are
required to provide a robust and statistically valid result.  Such quantitative research
studies tend to be conducted either by telephone or online.

Market research can cost anything from $20,000 (for a couple of focus groups, for
example) to $150,000 or more (for a wide ranging study incorporating focus groups
and quantitative research).

Conclusion

Product development research is used at all stages of the product life cycle, from the
conceptual stage through to maturity.  It serves a host of purposes, such as
establishing (unmet) needs, estimating likely demand, setting prices, shaping the
specification of the product or determining optimal price points, to name but a few
examples.  What's more, market research can unleash potential opportunities for
new products, as well as rejuvenate existing products, perhaps by incorporating new
features or finding new markets.  Given the costs involved in innovation, research
and development, and commercialization, as well as the costs incurred in
maintaining an aging weak product, product development research provides a high
return on investment.

This paper has shown that product development research does not just examine the
product alone; it explores everything surrounding the product such as packaging,
service, brand and company reputation.  Product research should encompass the
whole customer value proposition, and improvements to packaging, delivery, or any
aspect of service support could have just as big an impact as improvements to the
physical product itself.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge that people's tastes change slowly; they

gradually see and acknowledge the adoption of products by others; and over time
they are influenced by regular exposure to promotions.  An initial rejection of a new
product in a market research study may shortly become an enthusiastic embrace as
attitudes change.  Hence market research cannot be expected to give definitive and
direct answers to new product questions; rather it should be used to provide a
backdrop of understanding to the needs and unmet needs of the market.  It is the
researcher's task to use these insights in order to assess the new product's potential.
New product research needs more intuition and judgment from the researcher than
any other tool in the market researcher's tool kit.